This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome. Today is
Wednesday, March the 18th. I am excited about
the episode that is ahead of us. If you're new
around here, be sure and like and subscribe and
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episode. And as always, if you would like to
support financially this podcast, you can do
so in the link in the description below. Now
on to the episode today, we are in Romans chapter
three in our reading time today. One beautiful,
beautiful place of scripture. Paul Romans chapter
3. specifically about the middle toward the end
of the chapter. I hope you read the whole thing
today, as is our reading plan. It suggests to
do that. The first part of Romans 3, maybe if
you're new to Bible study or you're new to Bible
reading, you may think, what is happening here?
He's kind of going back and forth. Because of
this unfaithfulness, does that make God faithful?
If more unfaithfulness happens, is God more faithful?
If this happens, is this? It's a little bit of
contrast in what's going on. I want to give a
little bit of understanding. so that we can kind
of have a same base of knowledge as we continue
on. So the beginning of this text is Paul saying
to the people that are combating his... connection
to God and his mission. There's some Jewish leaders
that are disagreeing with Paul and saying that
Paul's not giving the full story because he's
not pushing the Jewish culture and the Jewish
traditions as much. There's a belief that you
still have to become a Jew in order to be a Christian.
And Paul begins this section of this letter.
Remember, he writes the whole letter. He doesn't
break it up into the chapters and the verses
like we have today. That's just for our reference
points. So there's a whole flow that's going
on. You know, I would say to go ahead and read
chapter 2 and then read chapter 4 as well, but
we're trying to make this as significant and
as specific as possible. In this, he begins to
talk about what the arguments are from the Jewish
people. In the first couple of verses, he makes
a profound statement. If you're reading in Romans
3, you may hear him say, to begin with, he says,
what advantage does the Jew have? Is there a
real advantage? They say, well, but you have
to have the Jewish culture. You have to be a
Jew in order to get all of the advantages of
Christ. Well, Paul says, what advantage do they
have? And he says, well, the one advantage I
will say that they had was they had the Scriptures
entrusted to them from a young age. The Gentile
people didn't have that. So they had the entire
Old Testament that they were brought up on, which
gave more understanding to the revelation of
who Jesus is. So Paul said that was a benefit.
But outside of that, starting earlier and getting
a little more knowledge of concealed truth from
the Old Testament, Jesus is for everybody. He's
for everybody. Then Paul begins to make a case.
The case he makes, specifically from verses 10
all the way down to verse 8, I'm going to pick
up and read verses 19 and following, but from
verses 10 to 18, Paul explains that every person
that has ever lived is sinful and deserves the
wrath of God. He talks in here a little bit about
the law and what the law does. The law exposes
the sin, right? Law is there so that you know
what sin is. You know what right and wrong is.
You know how to discern between what is good
and what is not good. That's why the law is there.
It reveals to us. places that we fall short.
And so one of the things I want to read is found
in Romans chapter 3, down in verse number 19.
Here's where I want to start today. So follow
along with me. Now we know that whatever the
law says, it speaks to those who are under the
law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the
whole world may be held accountable to God. For
by works of the law no human being will be justified
in his sight, since through the law comes the
knowledge of sin. That's what I was kind of trying
to explain just a second ago. The law gives us
the knowledge and understanding of what sin is.
Now, just so you're aware, from verses 9 or 10
down to verse 18, Paul gives 14 different areas
where he exposes the human heart into the reason
the human heart and the actions and the behaviors
done by man is sinful and it's outside of God's
perfect plan and his holiness. So he's just explained
in a few verses 14 different places the law has
exposed us. Meaning, as soon as you realize it,
you realize you don't have anything to stand
on. You've got no leg to stand on. You can't
talk your way out of this. That's why he says
all the mouths will be shut. Once you understand,
you really examine your heart, examine your life,
see the places that you have fallen short, and
there's nothing you can say to God. You can't
say, well, but I did this instead, but I was
this, but I was that. Paul says, every person,
we've all fallen under this because the law has
given us the knowledge of what sin is and what
holiness is, and we have all fallen short. He
continues on. I want to read the next few verses
just so that we are all aware here. He says in
verse 21, But now, you know, one of the things
I want to stop there and just say, there's a
lot of places in the scripture, specifically
in the New Testament, where we'll hear the word,
but, and that word is in there and it kind of
is like a hinge on a door, right? There is a
small hinge that's on a door and it moves this
whole big door and it gives this swing or this
change. And that word, but is one of those that
gives a big change, right? He's just said, we're
all doomed. We're all doomed. God is righteous.
He's holy. We are not. Here's 14 different swinging
statements of how sin is in all of our hearts.
There's nobody that is outside of this sin in
the human race, in the fallen race of Adam. We
are all slaves to this sin. Every one of us,
we've had these problems. We've had this issue.
It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or if you're
a Gentile. We're all under this curse of sin
in verse 21. But now. The righteousness of God
has been manifested apart from the law, although
the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
I want to stop right there. What does that mean,
the law and the prophets have borne witness to
it? What he's saying is, this is the plan from
the beginning. God had a plan from the very beginning
that the law was going to reveal who Jesus would
be. The prophets are going to speak of who Jesus
would be. All of those pieces, all of those things
are now, I like to say sometimes that the Old
Testament is truth concealed. New Testament is
truth revealed, right? The Old Testament is this
truth that you couldn't see all fully yet. You
couldn't see it in color. You couldn't see it
in the shapes and the sizes. But what happened
was Jesus came in the New Testament and he bore
witness to it. He was the one that it was all
bearing witness to. The law bore witness to Christ.
The prophets bore witness to Christ. Even in
the Old Testament, it revealed who Jesus was
going to be. And I love the thought that he's
just said there was a great benefit for the Jew,
and it was that they had the Old Testament. They
got to see and they were primed and helped understood
what this would look like whenever it got here.
And they didn't realize that it looked like Jesus
at first. He keeps going. Listen to this. The
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
for all who believe. For there is no distinction.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God and are justified by his grace as a gift
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
whom God put forward as a propitiation by his
blood to be received by faith. This was to show
God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance,
he had passed over former sins. It was to show
his righteousness at the present time so that
he might be just and the justifier of the one
who has faith. in Jesus. There's much more in
that chapter, and I hope and pray you read it
all today. But I just wanted to encourage you
and give you maybe a little new mercy today.
There is all this pointed to Jesus, every bit
of it. From the law that exposes who we are and
our sinfulness also exposed who Jesus is, the
perfect holy one. He never failed. He never fell
short of the law. The prophets all pointed to
Christ. And everybody was thinking the prophets
were pointing to some military leader. No, no,
no. It was pointed to Jesus, the one who would
be king over everything. Not just to come in
and take over a small portion of things, but
to come in and reign with total authority and
total power. I want to encourage you today. Find
the places in your life that don't look like
God. How do you do that? By looking at the law.
Look at the law, how holy all of God is. Look
at the things in your life that don't align with
that, right? Now, here's the good news for all
of us. It's not by our works that we're justified.
It's by Jesus's works. It says we are justified
not by what we do, but what Christ did. We have
faith in Christ. We've all fallen short of God's
glory. No matter where you were born, when you
were born, what decade, what time, what you look
like, what you sound like, that doesn't matter.
We've all fallen short of the perfect glory of
God. But we are justified by faith. this Jesus
we have a hope today we have a freedom today
we have an excitement today and I hope and pray
that you have a smile on your face realizing
that you had no hope but Jesus gave you everything
you could possibly ever dream of that is the
truth of the scripture today everything the law
and prophets pointed to is a gift that we have
now received go and live like it today